Monday, October 27, 2014

So, there was a school shooting in Estonia today. A 15-year-old kid from a small town shot a 56-year-old lady teacher of German with a revolver. The teacher died. School staff took away the kid's gun; the police have him in custody.

His name and Facebook account leaked already, of course. No, I won't link it. He looks like a regular kid. Some of the stuff on his FB is disturbing in hindsight, but not more so than any 15-year-old boy's.

This is a terrible tragedy, but let's remember that outside of the context of what we've heard from America (and Finland, and Norway, and Canada), a disturbed 15-year-old getting hold of a gun and shooting a teacher is no more or less of a tragedy than a drunk 15-year-old getting hold of a car and running over a pedestrian.

What we need to do right now is to make the right conclusions from this. What society needs to do is to not completely freak out.